Baggage on Spirit: Holy Expensive Carry-on Fees Batman!

I previously wrote about traveling on Spirit Airlines and how I thought they were a good deal *if* you were aware of all extra fees and could avoid them or minimize them as much as possible. I recently went on a quick out-and-back to Baltimore from DFW. My intent was to take no bags and fit everything we needed for 48 hours in a backpack and duffel bag that I could put under our seats so I wouldn’t have to pay baggage or carry-on fees. I noticed on our first flight that to purchase a carry-on bag at the gate Spirit now charges $100. I didn’t get a picture of it since we had some issues getting to the airport and were at the point of running to make sure we made the flight.

I have one duffel bag I’ve used for every flight we’ve taken on Spirit. It fits their “personal bag” size but it has wheels; a nice bonus when I’m traveling with the kids and I can get one of them to pull the bag through the airport. I never had a problem with my bags on a Spirit flight but on the way back to Dallas I noticed many people getting pulled aside being told they were going to be charged the $100 carry-on fee for having a duffel bag with wheels. Every single person wanted to talk to a supervisor before paying the $100. When my son and I went through, sure enough, they told me one of our personal bags counted as a “carry-on” because it had wheels. Never mind I already saw a guy with a much bigger duffel bag get on without a problem only because his bag didn’t have wheels.

I see most people are losing their fight with the Spirit employee who came down to charge everyone their bag fees. I had already run to the closest gift shop to see if they had any bags for sale I could stuff our things into and dump our other bag but no luck. I’m texting my husband who’s on the same wavelength as me and tells me that if they insist I pay the $100 I should try to fit everything into the backpack and leave anything that would be cheaper to replace than pay a $100 bag fee.

When it’s my turn I tell the employee I have used this bag on every Spirit flight I’ve been on (out of three different airports) and have never had to pay a carry-on fee. She asks if it will fit in the “personal” bag measuring device. I tell her yes and promptly put the bag in there. She says okay and tells the gate agent to let me through. I think I was the only one who won that battle since everyone else either had real carry-ons, or their duffel bags stuck up 6 – 12 inches beyond the maximum size for a personal bag and they couldn’t stuff them down to fit because of the wheels.

An interesting thing to note, it seemed out of all these people pulled aside, I was the only one aware of the bag charges for Spirit Airlines. At the very least everyone else feigned ignorance. I wondered how anyone could really not know about the bag fees since Spirit puts it all over their website, tells you when you’re buying your tickets, sends you E-mails asking to purchase bags the week before your fight and asks you again one last time when you check-in online and print your boarding passes and tells you that you will be charged more if you wait to purchase them at the airport or at the gate. The best thing I can come up with is 1) they were pretending not to know so they wouldn’t get charged or 2) these people bought their tickets from a third party (cheaptickets, priceline, or similar) and was not properly informed of the bag fees when buying their tickets through these third party sites.

If someone has bought Spirit through these sites and didn’t have a problem with that, let me know, but that’s the only thing I can come up with why so many people seemed completely unaware of the bag fees on Spirit (or they were merely pretending not to know).

I have at least one more flight on Spirit Airlines that I’ve already bought tickets for to a friend’s wedding in New York this spring (ah-hem). Lesson learned, on that flight I will take personal bags without wheels so I can guarantee I can smush them into their “personal bag measuring device” so (hopefully) I will not have the fear of a $100 carry-on fee again.

Why do you charge so much for baggage Spirit?!

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It’s Protege (from Wal-Mart). Looking online I’m not sure they sell the smaller bag size with wheels anymore. Ours is a 20 in. rolling duffel and the smallest bags I see with wheels are the 24 in. ones.

I know not everyone sews, but I made my own fits under the seat duffle/backpack for my spirit travels…and it is cute, not just your standard looking luggage. It is however rectangular box shaped which allows me to pack more but looks odd as a backpack when people are used to more trim looking backpacks…but I don’t care cause it is free!

Yup, you still have to pay carry-on fees. It’s $35 if you pay for it before you check-in online, $45 if you pay at online check-in, $50 if you pay at the desk agent (before going through security) and $100 if you pay at the gate agent. If you’re a $9 fare club member it’s $26 if you do it online before you check-in to your flight instead of $35 and it’s $36 instead of $45 during online check-in. It’s actually $5 less to check a bag than to have a carry-on with the exception if you get to the gate and have to check it. That’s still $100 no matter what. But if you pay for it online or even with the agent at the ticket counter it’ll be cheaper to check your bag than to bring a carry-on. Here’s the link on Spirit that shows the breakdown of bag prices:

I have a couple of questions about luggage on spirit….we are flying from Atlanta to cancun, with a stop in Miami . will I have to pay for bags in Atlanta and Miami? also at the en do four trip will I need to find a way to pay online before the flight back or can I pay all luggage fees upfront

If you bought it as one ticket from Spirit that included the stop then it should be just one baggage fee even though you have two legs of your trip. You can pay all the luggage fees upfront if you want to. If you have more than one bag you plan on checking; I would purchase each bag under a different person so you only have to pay the “first checked bag” fee which is cheaper than checking a second bag under the same person. Also make sure your bags weigh 40 lbs or less or you’ll have to pay the overweight luggage fee as well. Hope this helps!

Regarding the personal bag sizer, is it like a box you must fit your bag in? I have a bag with wheels, so it’s pretty rigid, and measures about 16 3/4″, I’m wondering your opinion if there is any grace room they will allow?

It is a box you need to fit your bag in. Per Spirit’s website the measurements may not exceed “16 inches by 14 inches by 12 inches (40 cm x 35 cm x 30 cm)”.

It really depends on where you’re flying in and out of. I’ve been in places where they are constantly monitoring the line and pulling people out whose personal items look too big, and other times they don’t seem to be paying THAT much attention. This is where they make their money (the $100 carry-on fees for unsuspecting people). That’s why after this incident I stuck with backpacks I knew I could smush to fit their sizer if I was ever called out. To-date they have never questioned our backpacks for our “personal items”.

You will have to pay for traditional carry-on bags no matter where/how you bought your tickets. If you just have a personal item (back pack, small duffle bag, etc.) you will not have to pay for that.

You can still get the cheaper bag rate through Spirit’s website. You will need to go to the “manage travel” tab on the main page and input your six digit/letter confirmation number. You will also need to create an account on Spirit’s website. Creating the account isn’t that bad. They just require your name, birth date, a valid E-mail address and a password. Once you do that you can go into manage travel and pay for your bags under “change/add bags”. Make sure to do it for both your flight out and your return flight. Good luck!

You are right! Lol! One more question we actually traveling tomorrow we have two kids with us my 3 year old and my 1 and we are actually bringing two strollers do I have to pay for the strollers as a carry on bag?

No worries, you won’t have any trouble gate-checking that. Going through security you’ll probably have to carry your younger child through the airport scanner and fold up the stroller to go through the X-ray machine.

It’s the same as the normal TSA carry-on rules. One quart-size bag, liquids, gels, pastes, can’t be bigger than 3 oz, yada, yada, yada. I have to admit that when I’m traveling with the kids I tend to put some of my extra “necessities” in their bags, since they don’t need more than toothpaste and shampoo. =)

Im getting nervous about our upcoming flight early November to Disney! Is that the back pack you take as a free bag? It looks huge! We are thinking it has to be some kind of tiny bp. Yours looks stuffed!! Im not so much worried about the bags as the cancelled or delayed flights! Thanks for your informative site! It has given me a little more peace of mind!

Yup, just a regular backpack. I’ve noticed more and more travelers on Spirit carrying them on their flights. There’s also no weight limit to your “personal item” so I tend to put our heavier items in the backpacks. They have to be able to fit under the seat in front of you. Spirit sometimes lets people put their backpacks in the overhead bins if they’re not full with carry-ons (and they’re usually not).

I make sure to sign up for E-mail and text alerts so I get notified if a flight’s delayed. I’ve been on over 20 flights with Spirit and have had three delays and one turn-around for maintenance. Every other flight with them I’ve been on was either on-time or even early. If you get in an “extreme delay” situation they will let you change your flight free of charge.

Tiff's first big vacation was a Caribbean cruise when she was six. She first started getting interested in deals when her husband showed her the tricks to getting bought off your flights back in the late 90s. She started flying nonrev when they got married; the first unusual nonrev she did was in '05 when her family flew through San Juan to get to Dallas from Philly. They have two boys, ages 9 and 5, who she usually drags along on their travels and hopes they will grow up to love traveling as much as she does.